Checkered Thief (A Laurel London Mystery Book 3) Read online

  I waved my hand in the air and then brought my fingers to my mouth, licking the glaze off my fingers, which was the best part in my opinion.

  “Listen, I’ve accepted the fact he is dating her. I’m sure it’s nothing serious.” It was like a light bulb went off in my head. If what I did help Bethany find her sister, Derek would want nothing to do with them after he found out their history.

  “I thought it was serious when he continued to stay at the hotel with her every night, but last night was a different story.” Louie cocked a brow.

  “Tell me,” I begged. My eyes lit up in anticipation.

  “Last night she didn’t come back until really late.” Louie put the dolly back down and leaned on it. “I mean really late as in two a.m.”

  “Really?” I asked, digging for more information. At what point did she leave Derek at Lucky Strikes? Why did she leave Derek? Was this when the real abduction happened? Was this the switch off between Brittany and Bethany?

  I tried to keep the timeline in my head and actively listen to Louie.

  “He waited in his car the whole night. Of course I wasn’t paying attention.” He looked down his nose and stared at me.

  “Of course you weren’t.” I pretended to know better. Louie was just as nosy as the rest of the town. And his gossiping about it just proved it. “I wonder where she was?”

  “Well, I was up watching reruns of M*A*S*H when she walked up.”

  “Walked up?” I asked.

  “Yeah. She wasn’t even in her car. But there was a commercial and I went to the bathroom which is close to her room and I could hear them yelling at each other.” I leaned a little closer to Louie so I could hear everything he was saying because Mr. Chiconi was dinging the “foods up” bell so loud that it was hard to hear. “She said something about her car breaking down and that was why she was late, but he said that she should’ve called and she said something about losing her phone. Then he asked about her outfit and why she wasn’t wearing what she had on at the bowling alley.” Louie laughed. “It sounded like some sort of police interrogation on her. Or a jealous boyfriend.”

  “Anything else you can remember?” There was no way Bethany was going to pull one over on Derek. From what Louie was saying, it sounded like Derek already had his suspicions. Derek was very observant and he wasn’t going to let an excuse of a car breaking down or a change in clothes sway his gut instinct that something wasn’t right.

  “She got a little attitude with him and he asked her where she had gone after Lucky Strikes. He also said how he was sorry ‘bout how you acted and if that was why she suddenly disappeared. She acted like she had no idea what he was talking about, so he recapped how you paraded your crazy until you passed out in your own puke.” Louie’s nose curled and he gave a little shiver. “And she got a little mouthy about it when he kept badgering her to remember. He mentioned that he hadn’t seen this side of her and how he was only looking out for her well-being since there had been some crime lately.” Louie pulled back on the handles of the dolly again bringing it back on its wheels. “That’s when she started to whine and he must’ve hugged her, ‘cause she stopped. That was my cue to get back to my show.”

  “Thanks for the doughnuts.” I decided to stop my questioning because Louie would become suspicious. Plus I didn’t want any more visuals of Derek and Brittany in any compromising situations that might stir up the anger again. The crazy I had at the bowling alley was surely to strike again and I needed to do everything in my power to dampen that down.

  “I’ll check on another batch of glazed, but I can’t promise anything,” he called over his shoulder on his way toward the delivery door. “Oh, yeah. Another thing I thought was interesting with Derek and his gal.”

  “What was that?” Curiosity always killed me.

  “When he went to kiss her, she pulled away and she told him that she wanted to be alone for the night.” Louie shrugged. “She didn’t even give him the option to beg her, she just pushed him away and shut the door in his face leaving him standing there like an idiot. That was the first time in the last month I have seen that. Normally, she grabs him and I don’t see them until the next morning. I got to get out of here. I’m behind on cleaning too.”

  “Okay, well be sure to make another delivery if you can,” I reminded him before he left.

  I grabbed the boxes of doughnuts and took them behind the counter so I could fill up the already empty glass containers that were dotted along the counter. I slowly filled them one-by-one replaying what Louie had told me.

  I was still a little leery about Bethany’s story because it seemed a little far-fetched, but everything Louie told me definitely went along with what Bethany had told me. I especially liked hearing she pushed Derek away at the end of the night and didn’t play around with the charade. She probably didn’t want him to see the scar on her chest because he would’ve known for sure that she wasn’t Brittany.

  “Gia, I have to get going.” A few of their other hired help had come in early and I still had to pick up Sharon Fasa for her weekly doctor’s appointment. “Let me know if you need me later. I have a feeling that Jax isn’t going to need me anytime soon on any of his investigations.”

  “You need to clear things up with Jax.” She stopped behind me with a tray of food. “Or you are going to become that cat lady we make fun of.”

  “He brought up my past and that was one thing he agreed never to do.” I untied the apron and hung it back on the hook, grabbed my bag and dug down for my phone. “He obviously hasn’t embraced me. And I’m fine with being the cat lady.”

  Though I was trying to be hard-hearted, I still held hope in my heart that Jax had texted me about our argument and wanted to see me, but there was nothing on my phone when I plucked it out of my bag. Only a picture of Henrietta that Trixie had sent me. Henrietta looked pissed with the small tinfoil hat Trixie had made for her. Yep. Gia was almost right, I wasn’t going to become the cat lady; I already was the cat lady.

  The reminder on my phone chirped. It was the alarm for Sharon Fasa’s appointment she had booked on my Drive Me app. She always complained that I was late, and she was right so I made sure I was going to be on time this time.

  “Mornin’!” I yelled across the street to Pastor Brown and his wife Rita when I bolted out of the diner and crossed the street to my car. They were holding signs and marching up and down the church lawn protesting the casino. I held my arm in the air and bent it a couple of times at the elbow. “I’m exercising my slot machine arm!”

  “You need to repent!” Pastor Brown spat back. Rita jerked her head the other way in order not to see me.

  Pastor Brown was also a victim of my petty crime spree when I was growing up. They wanted everyone in the community to think they were goody-two-shoes, but I knew better. They would go to the orphanage and hand-pick an orphan to take home for the holidays. It looked like a great time until the year they picked me. Trixie made a mistake allowing them to take me.

  Right off the bat Pastor Brown and Rita told me how things were going to go down. I had to put on a pretty little dress, take photos with all the presents they gave me and write a letter on how they made my Christmas the best Christmas ever. Their idea of how things would go down wasn’t my idea. When they went to bed on Christmas Eve, I got on the Kmart website and ordered a toy for every orphan in the orphanage using Pastor Brown’s credit card.

  I roped Derek into taking me to Kmart in the middle of the night to pick up the toys and sneak them in the orphanage. When the kids woke up, it looked like Santa had come. It beat the oranges, apples, and secondhand clothes Trixie usually gave us. I wrote my good girl letter on how Pastor Brown had given all the orphans a present this year and not just the chosen one who got to spend the holiday with them.

  Needless to say, Pastor Brown lost his religion on me that Christmas morning, but quickly found it when the newspaper came to do a big article on how he was like the Grinch and his heart grew two-sizes that Christmas. />
  He has held it against me ever since. So to fuel the fire, I poke the bear even though I’ve always heard not to poke the bear. It was hard because he was so easy to poke.

  Chapter Seven

  “It’s about time you got here.” Sharon Fasa plunked her ass in the front seat of my car.

  “I’m on time.” I held my phone in the air. “I even set the alarm. And why don’t you sit in the back like the rest of my clients?”

  “I’m not like the rest of your clients. I’m almost family.” She jerked the door shut and held her purse in her lap. She unzipped the top and pulled out a large plastic Ziploc. “And I baked for you.” She set the bag between us. “Homemade bread. I have a pie cooling on the windowsill to take to Trixie.”

  “You think Trixie is crazy.” There was not a person in town who didn’t see Trixie as a little eccentric. Sharon Fasa was one of them. And she didn’t mind speaking her mind.

  “It doesn’t mean I don’t like her.” Sharon’s chin lifted in the air. “She bragged on my pies last night at the casino, so I thought I would make her one.”

  “She did?” I smiled. “To whom?”

  “Derek’s. . .” She smacked her lips together.

  “Brittany?” I sighed.

  “You know about that?” she asked.

  “Clearly everyone but me knew about that.” I gripped the wheel. “Why was everyone so worried about what I thought?”

  “You are a little possessive of the people you love.” Sharon didn’t lie. I was possessive and if anyone hurt them, I’d be the first to hurt them. “And Trixie told Derek he needed to tell you.”

  “She did?” I wondered why he didn’t.

  “Anyway, that Brittany wasn’t as friendly as she had been.” Sharon held on to the door handle as I zoomed down River Road to make it to I-25. Her doctor was in Louisville, which was the closest big city to our little town.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  “Trixie and I were on the penny slots and we were thirsty. We didn’t want to move because we knew our machines were getting hot and everyone knows that the longer you stay on the machine, the closer you are to hitting it big.” Her head nodded up and down. “Brittany walked by and Trixie stopped her to get us a drink. She got all pissy about it.”

  “How so?”

  “She said it wasn’t her job and she didn’t have time to serve us when just an hour earlier she had gotten us one with no questions asked.”

  “What time was this?” I asked.

  “Around ten.”

  “Ten p.m.?” I asked trying to remember whether the real Brittany was at Lucky Strikes watching me make a fool of myself at ten p.m. and knowing I had taken Trixie home well before that time.

  “It certainly wasn’t ten in the morning. I never miss Dr. Phil. He’s on at ten a.m.” Sharon huffed.

  “Did Brittany have on her Glitz and Glam outfit?” I asked, saving my question about Trixie.

  Sharon’s brows furrowed. “You know,” she tapped her chin, “I don’t think she did.”

  “You said Trixie was with you?” I asked.

  “Of course she was.” Sharon adjusted herself in the seat. Her chin turned up in the air. “That’s why I owe her a pie.”

  “Now the truth comes out.” I didn’t bother telling her that I had taken Trixie home long before ten. I would take it up with Trixie when I got home. “What happened?”

  Trying to stay focused on what Sharon was saying was hard when my mind continually wanted to wrap around the Brittany/Bethany thing. The idea of Derek being in trouble was not sitting well in my stomach. If what Bethany said was true, this was definitely out of my league of hacking. Plus it was a federal crime with a lot of prison time—like life—if I hacked the casino and got caught.

  In fact, I got caught on every petty crime I committed when I was younger and Trixie even asked me why I did it because I obviously wasn’t good at it. Besides, orange was a beautiful color but it didn’t look good on me and the Kentucky correctional facilities only had orange jumpsuits.

  “Trixie and I had a little bet on who could win the most at the end of the night.” Sharon huffed, folding her arms across her chest.

  “End of the night?” My mind was a whole lot of fuzzy this morning when Trixie woke me up, but now that I thought about it, Trixie did have on the same outfit from last night. I glanced over at Sharon. “Oh my God! You have on the same clothes from last night. Did you and Trixie stay out all night?”

  That was one problem with the casino. It was open twenty-four-seven and there were no diners or stores in Walnut Grove open that early.

  “Jax brought us home around five a.m.,” Sharon said. “He sure is a nice young man.”

  “Get back to the bet.” I coaxed her ignoring her comment about Jax, making me wonder why Jax was at the casino at five in the morning when he was usually lying next to me.

  “She said she would win more money than me by the end of the night. If she won, I had to make her a pie and if I won she had to clean my house. I lost.” Sharon harrumphed. “So this morning, I had to hurry home and make my pies.” Her lips thinned. “I even told Brittany I would make her pie and she said not to waste my time because she hated pies. She must’ve been nice the day she sucked down the apple cobbler I made for the party at the council meeting to celebrate the opening of the casino.”

  “She was there?” I asked.

  Granted, I spent most of the council meeting staring at Jax on the stage because he was accepting the new position as the casino security guard, but I didn’t recall seeing Brittany.

  “Yes.” Sharon confirmed. “That was the night I think she met Derek.”

  “But Derek was late.” I recalled looking for him and he was on cop duty. He had taken a call about some rowdy teenagers down on the river dock and he wasn’t there when I left. “Trixie told me.”

  “And Brittany was the last to leave only because she was having car trouble. It was so cute.” Sharon smiled. “He was like her knight in shining armor.”

  I gripped the wheel. Knight in shining armor my ass. She was going to be the death of him. . .literally.

  A few minutes later, we pulled up in front of Sharon’s doctor’s office building. I brought the car to a stop and placed it in PARK.

  “Now, you be here on time. I always get hit on by men who are my age when I have to sit out here and wait on you.” As she opened the door and swung her legs out, I jumped out and grabbed her walker from the back. She slapped my hands away. “I don’t need that. I don’t need these old men thinking I need their help, it’s their ‘in’ for talking to me.” She slammed the door and I put the walker back in the car. “If I want a man, I want one at least half my age.”

  She didn’t bother saying bye, she just waddled up to the glass sliding doors of the entrance and disappeared into the building.

  What Sharon had said about Brittany’s turn of behavior was making Bethany’s case even better. The fact that Derek went to that extreme to keep it from me until he was able to tell me was not the right thing to do, but I did feel like he was trying to find a way to tell me. The only way I was going to get to the bottom of the real truth was to talk to Derek himself. If he would see me.

  Before I could get out of my thoughts, I was crossing River Road and pulling into the Walnut Grove Police Station on the left. I sucked in a deep breath while putting the car in PARK. The police station was a good place to see him after last night and the confrontation this morning. He would at least be somewhat civil if he was really, truly mad at me.

  There were times he was mad, but one wink and some good old memories never let him stay mad for long.

  The dispatcher sat behind the glass and slid it open when I walked in.

  “Not here,” he barely looked up from his crossword puzzle. “It’s slow today so he said he had some car to work on.”

  The car was no doubt Brittany’s since Louie said she claimed she had car trouble.

  “Thanks,” I muttered. My inside
s churned at the thought of going to his service shop. There was no time to waste. By the time I got to his place and groveled for forgiveness and pulled the information I needed out of him, it would be time for me to go back and pick up Sharon.

  I steered the car back to River Road and took a right, passing Porty Morty’s and Fiddle & Sons before turning into Derek’s shop on the right.

  There he was, buried under the hood of a yellow Jeep Wrangler. Without realizing it until after it was too late, I rolled my eyes and got a bad taste in my mouth about Brittany. Of course she would drive an awesome car. I rubbed my hand over the old Belvedere.

  “I do love you.” I gave it a slight pat to ward away any bad ju-ju I might have given myself.

  Derek’s head cocked over his shoulder. The three-second stare was a little too long before he stood up. I hated how he always contemplated his actions before he did them, unlike me. A fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl, I am. There were some situations I should’ve been more like Derek.

  He took the dirty oil rag from the back pocket of his mechanic’s jumper and rubbed his hands off on it before he put it back and leaned on the guts of the opened hood.

  “Laurel.” He crossed his arms across his chest. “If you are coming here to defend what you’ve done, you are wasting your time.”

  “I’m not.” I stopped in front of him. His five o’clock stubble was already starting to spread across his strong chin. The dimples I had grown to love were nowhere to be seen. “I’ve come to get the scoop from you, but first I have to apologize for my behavior.” I scuffed the toe of my shoe in the loose gravel. “I hate that it upset me so much. And don’t get me wrong.” I held my hands out. “I know I did wrong, but I really thought something like this, you would’ve told me before I found out. The way I found out was not good for me. You are my best friend. My brother.”

  “Laurel, you and I both know the brother and sister thing changed that night at the river.” His eyes bore into mine.

  I tried to bury the memory of the night he was referring to. We were adults and we consented. And it wasn’t too long ago. Only the two of us knew about it.